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I’m trying to figure out if my family’s plan to install a heat pump is actually going to reduce our overall emissions, or if we’re just shifting the environmental impact to the power grid. Our electricity still comes mostly from natural gas, so I’m feeling a bit stuck on whether this is a meaningful step forward.

We swapped in a heat pump last year. Our electricity still comes from a lot of natural gas in our grid. I asked the utility and did a rough calc: with a COP around 3, we used less site energy than a gas boiler would have, but because the grid emissions per kWh are fairly high, the overall emissions dropped only modestly, maybe 10 to 15 percent on a yearly view. The real win for us is the absence of on-site combustion and the better local air quality; climate impact still depends a lot on when the grid gets cleaner. We also try to avoid long hot-water draws at peak times to keep COP reasonable, which helps a bit.

I did a quick model using our monthly bills and the regional grid emission rate. The numbers moved with the seasons; winter months often showed near-zero gains or even worse because electricity use spikes while gas plants still run. Not a dramatic climate win yet, but not nothing either.

We started tracking monthly emissions: monthly kWh, the grid's CO2 per kWh, and any leftover gas heating. After two seasons I could point to a few months with a real drop, but the yearly total still looked similar until the grid goes greener. I even toyed with a small solar setup, but pulled back when the numbers didn’t line up.

Do you think the real issue is heat loss rather than the heat source? Maybe insulation and sealing should come first before choosing a heating system.

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